Weekly Update #191: Our Next Goal

With the first GENBA no Kizuna demo finally released, it’s now time to focus on our next major goal. And if you have played through our demo, you can probably imagine what that will be: another demo, of course!

As mentioned before, the current one was supposed to be more of a quick glimpse at our new project. We wanted to give people an idea of what has changed and how GENBA feels compared to SHINRAI, as well as figure out if we’re on the right track.
And considering the feedback we have gotten so far, it seems as though we are.

Having that reassurance, we are going to continue working on the game in chronological order now, starting with what would follow right where the demo ends. The writing for the entire Preparation Phase has long been done, although some parts still need some more work. While we are going through everything scene by scene now, I will certainly make some slight revisions.

Patrons can already read the script for the next scene over on Patreon and now, as of a couple of days ago, they can also listen to the next BGM track. Solo has composed a character theme for Shinketsu, which will play during his introduction.

There are two more tracks that will be needed for the next scene. I will give him the details for the next one shortly and, considering how fast he usually works, I guess you can expect it to show up on Patreon soon as well!

So, what else do we need for the scene? Since it introduces Shinketsu, it’s finally time to give him some more poses and expressions, but it’s not just him. The scene also introduces Rei, meaning she needs to get a couple of sprite variations as well.

Then there is, of course, the background image for the main hall, which is still a work-in-progress (patrons can currently get an early look at that, too). And I have also planned one CG that depicts the victim’s body in greater detail. But outside of that, that’s mostly it. Finishing this scene shouldn’t take too long.

The real question is where the extended demo will end, how much content it will include, and how long it will take to complete that.

Right now, I’m planning to have it feature about half of the Preparation Phase. Everything up until the point where all the police investigators as well as the suspect characters have been introduced. I want players to at least get an idea of what all the characters are like and provide some more info about the case itself, which will hopefully serve as a nice hook. Not sure if we will go beyond that, though. I guess we’ll see once we’re getting closer to finishing the extended demo.

However, right now, I can’t tell how long that might take and I honestly don’t want to give any possible time frames anymore. I thought I had gotten a better grasp on this stuff after four years of visual novel development, but nope! There are still way too many variables to reliably predict how long certain things might take, so I’d rather refrain from doing so “orz

It’ll be done when it’s done. There certainly is going to be a lot of work required overall. Himatsu and the suspects will need to get their sprites done, we will need a few more backgrounds, CGs, BGMs and sound effects, so asset-wise, we definitely have our work cut out for us. It honestly seems a little overwhelming, but the good thing about it is that, once those assets are done, tackling the next scenes will be a lot easier.

At the moment, we’re still at the beginning, but the further we get and the more assets we create, the less we will need to do for later chapters. After all, it’s not like each character needs a dozen new sprite variations for every new scene. Eventually, we’ll get to a point where we’ll have all the expression we need. That’s why starting out with a new project is always the worst, most time-consuming part. Because you have nothing. Take the GUI and menus for example. Those sure took a while, but now that they’re done, we only need to add new DPA entries from here on out.

Anyway, I think I’ll leave it at this for today so… as always, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care!